One Thousand Nights
by crisskisses
Summary: After Mockingjay, District 12 is a lonely place and nothing can district Katniss Everdeen from the horrors of her past. At night the darkness closes in on her in the form of dreams. One individual is determined not to let her go at it alone. Katniss/Peeta


**So this is a post-mockingjay oneshot I've been working on for a while. I'd just add little bits at different times because it wasn't really flowing at first but I had an idea on how I wanted it to end. I'm pretty happy with the end result. This takes place a few months after the end of Mockingjay, excluding the epilogue. Please drop by and review! Reviews make my life ;)**

One Thousand Nights

Cold, harsh, winds and heavy rain, Katniss dreams it all. Every droplet of water that hits her frostbitten face is like another small hurricane bearing down doom and despair. She's just a little girl, no more than seven, laden down with little parcels filling her arms. She struggles to hold them up in the tumultuous downpour, like each one has a tiny life tucked away in it for safekeeping that she has to protect. A gust whips around her long braid but Katniss tries to keep her chin up and stay determined like a wise friend once told her. Thunder claps.

Katniss turns around quickly; with a hint of the hunter's feet she has not yet acquired. Her dad taught her to hunt before he died, but she's not as polished as she once would be. This is that awful period between her father's death and when she saw the dandelion that gave her the idea to hunt and feed her family.

It's like Katniss can sense the intruder coming when she turns around to check the area. Sure enough, someone is there. His blonde hair is plastered to his forehead from the rain, not in its usual waves. Blue eyes gleam almost silver in the moonlight looking up at Katniss full of sadness and concern. The little boy's eyes bear the desire to help.

Wordlessly, he crosses to her and tries to help her carry some of the many bundles. More seem to be appearing by the second, materializing on the top of the heap piled hap hazardously in the crook of the girl's cradled arms. Their brightly coloured wrappings bleed blue and pink from the constant fall of the water that smears the paper covering them. No gifts wrapped as fine as these are ever brought into District 12, but Peeta doesn't question anything. This is a dream. No one questions anything.

"No!" Katniss tells him harshly as he tries to take the burden off her hands. "I have to keep them safe, Peeta!" she snaps.

Peeta reaches a hand towards her shoulder without actually touching it. "We could keep them safe together," he says in earnest.

Katniss tugs the parcels away from him. "No," she repeats, turning her face away but not before she sees the welt appearing on the side of Peeta's face. The storm has made his skin slick with water but the welt glows bright, regardless. Katniss knows right now that she should take the parcels and leave before they can bring any harm to the boy or the boy can bring any harm to them. But she can't leave him with that mark on his face. "You're hurt," she decides to point out delicately. The crack of lightening illuminating her face proves that she can't hide a worried expression.

Peeta ignores her statement. "We can keep them safe together," he says again and takes a step towards her. He puts his hands slowly on the packages and gets ready to take them away again. They are children and Peeta is taller than Katniss, but Katniss has known hardships and hunger, and survival. Katniss is stronger.

"No!" she shouts louder still and pulls the parcels back in her direction. She pulls too hard. The bundles hit the ground. They clatter and crash while the thunder keeps on booming and the lightening keeps on flashing.

Boom. Flash. Clatter. Crash.

Katniss is scrambling and trying to keep the packages from hitting the ground but it's no use. They already have. The presents are emitting a rosy mist that swirls around the girl and boy in tight circles, spitting the rain in their faces and amplifying the clatter and crash of the outside world. The mist smells of blood and Katniss pulls up her shirt to cover her mouth and nose. She is nauseated. She thinks she might faint, but Peeta won't let that happen. He has a firm grip on her shoulder as they stand in the center of the pinkish tornado.

Then the real horrors begin. Apparitions float from each of the presents, each the mirror image of the person whose life Katniss was trying to spare. They look at Katniss and Peeta. They leer at Katniss and Peeta. They speak, all saying the same phrase.

"You killed me," says Madge.

"You killed _me,_" says Finnick.

"You killed me," garbles Mags from behind her tribute.

On and on it goes like that. Katniss squeezes her eyes shut and tries to block out the voices that cause her so much heartbreak. Peeta looks at their faces like he's trying to memorize every line to freeze in a painting one day, but that's not what he's doing. He's trying to convince himself that, not only he hadn't killed these people but, Katniss could not have had a hand in their deaths. He was wrong and they both knew it.

The scent of blood and roses starts to intoxicate Katniss. She sinks in her spot and it shrouded on the slick pavement, the crouched position makes her look even smaller than she is –stick thin with hollowed cheeks. She keeps trying not to listen. Finally, she peeks up to see if the worst is over. It isn't. A new figure apparition is inching towards Katniss, but this one doesn't sadden her. It terrifies her.

"You killed me, Katniss," chuckles President Snow, taking another step closer but still hovering two inches off the ground.

President Coin appears out from behind Snow. Her hair swishing in its perfectly straight line and she eyes Katniss sternly.

"You killed me too," she says, and then, turning to Peeta, she adds, "Both of you."

Katniss shivers and tries to hastily get to her feet. Peeta helps her up; he is still standing. He looks at her as if awaiting instructions. She looks at him and shakes her head discreetly, still keeping a wary eye on the Presidents.

"I know you are happy we are dead Katniss," says President Coin slowly, yet matter-of-factly.

"But you know we can always find you in your dreams…" finishes Snow with a menacing lilt.

This is all Katniss can take. She clutches her head in both hands, her left ear that will be deafened for a brief period by explosions one day is throbbing. She is falling fast, her eyes are closed so she can't see the ground advancing.

"Peeta," she manages to murmur. "Catch me,"

Ouch. She slams into the ground face first and tastes a thin stream of blood trickle into her mouth. The copper metal flavour overcomes her. She feels woozy but sits up. Peeta didn't catch her. Why didn't he? Then it hits her. No one is around. Peeta is gone. She has to find him, she decides, she has to make sure he isn't being hurt by Snow…or Coin.

As she gets up her legs elongate and her face matures. She becomes eighteen year old Katniss, the girl who tosses and turns in her bed as she dreams this right now. She gets to her feet. Her injuries are gone; she is good as new. The rain dries up and the clouds speed away. Katniss steps across the pavement. The only remnants of the previous scene are the gift wrapping ripped and strewn across the floor. Katniss walks through them silhouetted against the sun, her tan hunting boots padding softly against the blacktop.

The boot rustles one of the wrappers. A leftover apparition rises from it slowly, by far the most horrible so far. Prim.

Katniss jumps back, startled and scared of her own sister. The girls yellow hair is plaited in a familiar braid down her back and her big blue eyes are her only other recognizable feature. The flesh of her face is burnt and crumbling. Her clothes are blackened and burned away completely in some places revealing the raw, red skin on her thin body.

Her pretty eyes are full of sadness as she tells her sister in the smallest, softest voice, "Katniss, you killed me."

Prim disappears in wisps of smoke and by this time Katniss's face is streaked with tears. She turns around, wanting to run, wanting to find some place that is safe. But the place finds her. Peeta is walking towards her with a big smile on his face. She runs to him, knowing that if he puts his arms around her and she can cry into his chest that everything will be okay, if only for a little while.

She reaches him and he lifts a hand to caress her face, to tell her that he is there for her in one simple gesture. That's what she thinks. At the last second the gentle fingers curl into an iron clad fist. Katniss screams as it makes contact with the side of her face and collapses on the ground. In the real world she could will herself to fight back or maybe someone would even come to her aid, but neither option happens. This is how Katniss is in her mind, powerless and terrified.

"Peeta," she manages to get out from her place of agony on the ground. She looks up at him and sees double, watching two sets of blue eyes looking down angrily at her. "Why did you do that?" she whispers, closing her eyes so she doesn't have to see the disgust in his face when he tells her the same answer she's heard a thousand times in a thousand dreams.

"Because you're a mutt," she hears him say fiercely. She covers her ears with her hands. She doesn't need to hear this. Not again. Not when things in the real world were getting better. Peeta's flashes back to his hijacked state were becoming more infrequent. Katniss was even beginning to think…but no. That could never be true again.

Katniss gets up from her huddled position and stands a few feet away from Peeta. She keeps her eyes on him as she quickly bends down to pick up a black bow and sheath of arrows from the ground, tucking one foot behind the other as she gracefully claims them. She places an arrow in the contraption and points it at Peeta's heart. She needs to do this so he can't hurt her again. She doesn't know if she can hang on if he hurts her again. She needs to question him, to tell him that he's wrong, that's she's not a mutt. Helping Peeta know what's real and what's not is so ingrained in her by now that she can't even differentiate between dreams and the outside world. She's the one who needs helping.

"Peeta I'm not a mutt," she tries to tell him calmly, but her voice betrays her.

"Yes you are," he retorts with certainty. "You're more than that, you're a murderer."

Katniss hangs her head, "I know I am," she says emotionally. "But you said we could get past that. You said we could get through this together," She looks up at him with her grey eyes shining with tears and remorse.

"You said, you said," Peeta mimics her. "Maybe I did, Katniss. But I never meant it. You just had me under your spell. Whatever powers the Capitol gave you, they tricked me. You're just a stupid mutt. You're a killer, Katniss." He takes a few steps towards her. "You're a killer," he repeats.

Katniss inhales and exhales shakily. Her bow is vibrating up and down in her trembling hands. Her lips quiver as she bravely tries to form the words, "I'm sorry,"

Peeta raises a hand to strike her again. Katniss closes her eyes and braces herself. But then she stops. This isn't what the old Katniss would do. She remembers what her friend Boggs once told her, "Do what you came here to do. Kill Peeta."

Katniss feels Peeta's calloused fingers caress her cheek, and she doesn't flinch. She opens her eyes. She knows that he's come back to her; the flash of his hijacked self is over. He is the old Peeta. Like always. Always. The fringe of eyelashes parts as she opens her grey eyes and stares at Peeta, ready for him to tell her it's all okay now.

"I know you're sorry, Katniss," he says gently. "But I know that…"

_That I love you, that we can get through this together, that it will be okay, like always. _Katniss wills him to say.

The blow comes down hard.

"That you're a murderer."

A million miles away, Katniss Everdeen wakes up curled on her side atop her mattress. The sheets covering it are strewn and wild, and her blanket has shimmied off of her leaving her frozen in the night, despite the thin sheen of sweat covering her body. The tank top and cotton shorts that cling to her skin are irritating. She wishes she could rip them off and shed her skin and be nothing and be naked and be alone. What she wants most of all the wishes is to fall back into a dream, but not that one. Never that one.

She has to bring the pillow to her mouth to muffle her scream. This is not how it is supposed to be. After she sacrificed all she had she should be allowed some peace. Every day lit hour of her life forces her to think of the people she killed and the people she lost and the people who lost her. Every night she should be allowed some peace. She _should _be allowed to fall into a state of nothingness where she doesn't care about the world and the world doesn't care about her, and doesn't want to know her, want to thank her, want to kill her, want her dead. She should be allowed. But she isn't.

The pillow doesn't work. The scream pierces the waning night, and the fading darkness outside is filled with it. Katniss is hunched over on the bed with is pushed right up next to the open window, screaming. The breeze raises goose pimples off her skin and the glass of the window is frosted over. Katniss can't see through the misty panes. Not seeing reminds her of not knowing. Not knowing reminds her of being in the dark. The mines where her father died were full of darkness. Katniss hates the dark.

She stops screaming. She tries to inhale and exhale normally; to go through the motions of living even thought there's nothing in it for her. Seconds pass and another sound interrupts the still quiet. A brass telephone starts ringing, shrill and quaint. It's mounted on the wall beside the window and above Katniss's bed. She pulls herself together. This could be important. This could be Effie telling her to get ready for another big, big public appearance. Or what if her mother is calling? Or what if Prim is in trouble? The last two are ridiculous. Her mother never calls and Prim is dead.

Katniss unhooks the phone and holds it up to her ear. A gruff voice reaches her.

"Kat, you okay? I heard…screaming…"

Across the way Haymitch did hear screaming. Katniss's night terrors are an often occurrence. But Haymitch has to know if she's okay. It's why he was sent to District 12. He's still her mentor. She needs mentoring.

Katniss doesn't answer. She just lets the phone slid out of her hand and listens to the dull thump it makes when it hits the floor. It might be broken now. She has broken a lot of things since she was relocated back to 12. They're always mysteriously replaced. She hates them.

It was just Haymitch on the phone. It wasn't her mother. It wasn't Prim. Prim's gone. It wasn't important.

"Katniss? Katniss?" she hears faintly a couple more times from the phone on the floor. But Haymitch soon gives up from his cozy mess of a living room, swinging a liquor bottle around and sloshing a little of the liquid over the carpet. He doesn't like the dark either.

Soon the telephone goes silent but Katniss doesn't bother to pick it up. She sits, slumped over, hugging the pillow for support for hours. Dreams mean more distorted reality and reality means she has to stop dwelling on distorted dreams. Silent stillness is the only option. So she lets invisible knives pierce into her until morning.

It isn't really morning. The darkness does pale considerably but the colour of the sky is more comparable to dusk than dawn. You can still see a few feeble stars that haven't been completely eclipsed by the rising sun and the light pink edges of sky on the horizon are barely visible.

There is a knock at the door. It is much too early for a knock at the door. From the look of her, you can't tell if Katniss hears it or not. It's not one of those loud, rambunctious, rhythmic knocks, but more of a tentative "Can I come in?" type of sound. Whether or not it reached her ears, Katniss stays still as a statue.

The creaking of a person walking up the stairs with a tread none to silent that she has criticized in happier dangerous times she definitely hears. It doesn't change her position. She doesn't move until a head peeks around her open door frame and a voice calls her name.

It isn't a question, like 'Katniss?" It's a statement. "Katniss."

Peeta enters the room without asking. He has done this before, many times even, to see if Katniss is okay. He didn't hear her scream that night. It didn't wake him from his own nightmares. All he heard was the absence of sound when he woke, rolling over in the wee hours of the morning. He knew what that meant. Everything was still and silent. Like it had been disrupted by a noise, a scream, not long before. That's when he raced over to see Katniss.

Her walls are up. "Go away," she says almost in audibly, her lips moving the slightest amount.

Things are weird between Katniss and Peeta. He still loves her, like always, but sometimes he hates her. Well, he thinks he does, because of what the Capitol did to his mind. And she hates herself, and hates the world, for taking her sister, for taking her happiness. She doesn't know if she can ever love someone again. They usually got on with good terms. They planted the primroses. They made the book of memories. But that was all in the safe sunlit hours of day. Dawn and dusk are the times when lines start to blur, because in the darkness everything becomes a possibility. Without sun, you can't always illuminate what is right in front of your face.

"Why?" asks Peeta. There is no hurt look on his face. There is nothing but pure curiosity. He still wants to understand her.

"You can't be here," Katniss continues. Her lips betray her in a quiver. She's still afraid of dream Peeta. She's afraid he'll tell her the truth; that she _is _a murderer.

"Why?" Peeta repeats. He takes a step closer to her, still a safe distance away, but leaning over her bed and looking down at her huddled form. She looks awfully small and a lot less powerful than she usually does.

Katniss still has her pride. She won't let him know that he scares her in her dreams. That she always wonders if he could leave with no explanation. That she constantly thinks about him hijacked and how easily he could slip back into that mindset. She turns her face away.

Peeta reaches out a questioning hand to cup Katniss's cheek, brush a stray hair off her neck, something. Katniss flinches.

"Don't touch me," she whispers in a cool expressionless tone, trying not to convey anything but indifference. On the inside she's screaming; she wants to be alone, she doesn't want him here.

Peeta's hand doesn't move. It stays mid-air a few inches in front of Katniss's face. He makes eye contact with her. Blue and grey meet undiluted and uncensored. One pair is attempting not to show fear, the other stares them down, waiting for their owner to speak. I'll let you guess which is which.

Katniss looks down first. The staring contest is over. She can't face the blue. She can trust the grey to keep their secrets. Peeta's hand hasn't moved. She considers brushing it away but decides against it. She just stays still as a stone and looks down, ignoring him all together.

"You can't ignore the world forever, Katniss," says Peeta after a long time. "You can't ignore _me _forever."

Because Katniss has tried. Ever since the rebellion, ever since she moved back to 12, she's tried to ignore her thoughts and memories. Hiding in the night, she backs away from everyone and tries to keep her emotions under wraps. She's tolerated the people she's been aligned with; nothing more.

The dark haired girl looks up at her blue eyed lover. Acquaintance. Friend. Ally. Fiancé. Traitor. Tribute. Victor. Enemy. He said all those things and more while trying to figure her out, and right now she didn't know who he was either.

Peeta's drops the hand that was still hanging in the air and he turns to leave the room. Katniss smells victory. He's not going to bother her any more tonight, because he can never stay when she doesn't want him to, even if it's for her own good. She lets out a sigh of relief, knowing that she will be left alone to contemplate her dreams tonight. But she's wrong. Suddenly, Peeta swishes around like he's had a change of heart and he's on her, hovering a few inches over her stony form with one large hand on either side of her neck, pulling her face closer to his. She loses all of her stiff posture as her mouth opens in shock and Peeta doesn't hesitate to sweep his lips smoothly over hers. The kiss lasts a second that feels like a moment's length. After, Peeta extracts his fingers from her neck in a slow gentle manner, letting them linger there to feel the soft skin that is still damp from her tears.

Katniss is perched on the edge of her bed with her feet together on the floor before it and her hands folded in her lap. Her shoulders are slumped forward and her neck is outstretched because it unconsciously moved with Peeta's fingers before he let go. Her braid is slung over one shoulder, the stray hairs that escaped fall limply to frame her expression of confusion and dawning understanding, but she's not mad. Peeta is standing two feet away and for once he isn't looking at Katniss, but off to the side, like he's wondering if that was the last time he would ever kiss his love, if he went to far because she specifically told him to leave. If it was too soon after the war and after the sadness, and after the Capitol stole his mind. But he doesn't regret kissing her, he could never regret that.

Katniss looks at Peeta as he slowly turns his head to look down at her and check on the damage. They just stare at each other for a moment in time and think of everything that's passed between them ever since the day in the rain, with burnt bread and baby clothes. Katniss stands up and, without warning, launches herself into Peeta's arms. It's his turn to be surprised as he slowly lowers his arms to pull her in closer. Their bodies rock with her sobs and they can both understand that the grief they each have is not something that can be shouldered alone. It's something they have to share.

"Peeta," Katniss chokes out after a long time. "I'm sorry I'm so cold to you. You shouldn't be so good to me; you've always been too good. I've known that I probably wouldn't be anyone's anything since I was eleven years old, except for a sister and a daughter, and look how that's working out for me."

Her hopes and dreams of a normal life died with her father. When he disappeared, so did the steady force that shielded her from the real world, from the Hunger Games, from life. But Peeta knows how Katniss operates, that her walls go up when she needs someone the most because she doesn't want them to have to share her pain.

"I'm not too good for you, Katniss," Peeta answers. "Really, I'm not even that good. I tried to kill you last year, I was trapped in the Capitol when all of you were working on the rebellion, and you and Haymitch didn't even think I was good enough to know half the things you were plotting." Katniss makes a noise like she's about to say something but Peeta doesn't let her; he keeps talking. "And you're not cold to me. You're cold to everyone. It's just how you are and you are that way because you've had to go through so _damn _much. And you still think you aren't good enough for me."

Peeta takes a deep breath to steady himself. Katniss feels his chest rise and fall and closes her eyes, resting her head against him.

"You know what, Peeta?" she asks after a while, still with the edge to her voice that suggests previous crying. "People think I'm the strong one. People think nothing can shake me. But everything does. I'm just as weak as…as anyone! I can't keep it together. I'm supposed to be this constant force telling people "The war is over now, it's going to be okay," but it's not going to be okay! The war can't be over if it changed so much. Prim's not coming back and Finnick's never going to be here again and Gale doesn't even talk to me, and I don't even care because I don't know who he is anymore! Nothing is okay and nothing's ever going to be the way it was before."

She finishes her speech and Peeta let's go of her somewhat, thinking aloud when he says, "So you want things to go back to the way it was before."

_So you want things to go back to when I barely knew you? So you want the Districts of Panem to be slaves to the Capitol's every wish and participate in the Hunger Games every year? So you want Gale Hawthorne to be here to comfort you right now instead of me? _He thinks in savage sadness.

"Yes…" Katniss answers. She sees his crestfallen face and adds to her answer. "And no," Katniss grabs Peeta's hand and pulls him to sit down on the bed with her. Their bodies face the door, a habit they picked up in the Hunger Games: keep your eyes on the entrance at all times, you never know when your enemy could enter. There are no real enemies in District 12 now, there are few real people, but the concept is so engrained in their minds by now that they will never stop doing it. It's almost like they're keeping watch right now as the rest of their alliance steals a few precious hours of sleep before the fighting keeps going in the morning. But their alliance is gone now. Katniss's fingers are coiled around Peeta's forearm and her head rests against his shoulder.

"I just want to be free and have my family. I want to be happy and not have these memories eating away at me everyday. And I don't want everyone to know who I am. I don't want to be expected to do things I don't want to do."

Her sentences echo through the stillness and in Peeta's mind. "So basically you want the world to be perfect?" he asks her.

He smiles as he sees a hint of her old sarcasm on her face when she looks up at him. "Yes," she answers truthfully. "But that's not going to happen, is it?"

Peeta gently rests his chin on top of her head. "No," he says. "That's never going to happen."

"I do want the Capitol to be out of the picture, I'm grateful to the rebellion on that aspect." Katniss mumbles. "But I don't want to be so tied to the revolution. Maybe if I wasn't such a major player, Snow and Coin wouldn't have gone for the people I love. Maybe then Prim would be alive." Katniss mumbles.

Peeta shifts Katniss onto his lap and places one hand on each of her forearms so he can look her in the eyes. She looks vulnerable, afraid, and full of remorse. She really believes she killed her sisters.

"I failed, Peeta." she says finally. "All I had to do was keep them safe. I still have to keep them safe."

At this moment, Peeta sees all the little bundles that Katniss has to carry through the wind and rain and truly wishes he could help her. The next thing he says will reverberate in this room for a long time, during the kisses that will be much deeper than the previous ones, and after. It will explain the prophetic vision of the night. It will show Katniss that she's not alone.

"We can keep them safe together."

**Thanks so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed! I know its way angsty, but so was Mockingjay. BTW I'm iffy on the title so if anyone has a better idea, feel free to suggest it.**


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